| Summary: | straight west, the hunter could again reach the trail, and keep Bottineau's Butte (Pilot Knob) in sight as a landmark, while so doing. Of course, there may be no connection at all between the spearhead and the skeleton. A wounded animal might have dragged the spearhead for miles, before dying with it, or losing it. Then again, the site of the skeleton may be another mound. There certainly is a likelihood that the Thompson Mound, as we speak of it in this writing, is related to the known Indian mound region along the Sheyenne, west and north. ARTIFACTS — To show how Indian artifacts come up almost anywhere in our area in general, we list Indian stone hammers on hand at the time of writing, the place found, and the person giving the information: 1 — Section 35, Dows Twp.—according to John Conrad, Erie. 2 — Section 13, Dows Twp.—according to Glenn Fletcher, Galesburg. 1 — Kept in Dows School for years—according to Glenn Fletcher. 1 — Section 1, Ayr Twp.—according to Mrs. Sylvia Buhr. 1 —Section 13, Lake Twp.—found by Joe Har- beke. 1 — Otterness farm, section 35, Lake Twp. 1 pipe, 1 hammer, 5 arrowheads—Cornell Twp. -Edgar Preston. 3 — Section 15, Page Twp.—Ernest Fricke. Earl Klessig, Section 12, Page Twp., also assures me he has several. Then there is one from Hunter, N. D., and another one from Wright farm southwest of Luverne. Others have spoken to me about finding them: the Burchilis in Minnie Lake Twp., Barnes Co.) Owen Satrom in Rochester Twp.; and Lester Haskins, who as a young fellow used to ride out to Pilot Knob (Bottineau's Butte) in Grand Prairie Twp. (Barnes) west of the Minnie Lake church today, found several on this hill, but lost them during exhibition at the Page 60th anniversary celebration. Two verbal accounts, one by Erl Klessig, the other by John Brandt, should be included here. Erl loves to speak of the lake that once existed on the Strain farm (SWJ4, Sec. 7, Page Twp.) The bone pickers found wagon loads of loot around this body of water. Nine feet in depth, or more, this Lake was used later by the Baptists in administering the Sacrament, though it was not the only one thus hallowed. Says Erl: "My Dad said that when he first came there you could see places where the Indians had camped . . . You could see where the Indian children had made small fences out of bones . . . And you could also see buffalo trails leading to the lake." The fences of bones probably were the result of tepee fire-pits. Local tradition has it that this place served as an Indian encampment at times. More strange is a story that came to light in an interview with John Brandt. Because of the sterling character of the witness, one cannot ignore it. Coming to Page in 1891, John Brandt eventually bought Section 21 in Rich Township in 1899. A previous owner had plowed 80 acres, but not on the area of our story. John himself broke up the virgin sod where the buildings are now located. Not far from there, near the NW Corner of the NWJ4, his plow suddenly struck and loosened two rocks. Rocks are not numerous in the section. He stopped the horses to dig up the rocks and roll them onto the plowed surface. He found more rocks! Rocks, one after the other! "It was all rock," he says, "We took out two wagon loads of stones from one place. I could never figure out how they got there." According to the description it was not a stone- pile. The rocks appeared to have lain contiguously, in a horizontal layer that was more or less even. Several inches of soil covered them. They could not have been detected under the sod. None of the rocks exceeded a foot in diameter, and most of them were smaller. The sod seemed as well-knit there as in the rest of the field. John J. said he had never mentioned this find of rocks to anyone, except possibly to workmen when operating on this field years ago. A member of the household present at the interview confirmed this statement, adding, that his grandfather had told him many tales of the old days, but never had related this one. In general we may conclude that the Indian possessor of our land had vanished by at least one generation when the settlers came to Page. The Indian Title in Cass County was extinguished in 1873. Custer's Battle on the Little Big Horn River took place a good five hundred miles to the west. The second Riel Insurrection took place in 1885, involving Indians on the warpath; but Batouche in the Northwest Territories lies in far away Canada. Nearer home, a much publicized Indian uprising took place in 1886, (16) on the Winnebago Reservation in South Dakota. The father of Mrs. Henry Unger, coming straight from Germany, arrived at Fort Sisseton in 1885.' She does not recall that he ever spoke of Indian troubles. This was a mild affair. Sit-down strikes of the 1930's contained just as must violence. In general Indians were so far removed from our area, that they made news whenever one was discovered. Thus in the HOPE PIONEER of May 30, 1884 we read: "Two Indians in a birch canoe passed by Wahpeton last week. They were on their way to Winnipeg from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota." And on May 16th: "A number of Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
|
|---|